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Sample: The complete guide to marketing plans for accountants

This guide was created by the PracticeWeb team with input from Alex Tucker, Ray Newman and Philippa Jordan.

Introduction

We all know how pressed for time accountants are, and not every partner or director of an accountancy practice is willing to commit resources towards a marketing plan without having a guarantee of return on investment.

First, for clarity:

a marketing strategy is a statement of what you want to achieve in the long-term

while a marketing plan sets out what you’re going to do to get there in the next six- or twelve-month period.

A good marketing plan focuses time, energy and budget on what matters most, with business goals in mind. It maintains momentum and provides clarity about who needs to do what, by when, and why.

A good marketing plan focuses time, energy and budget on what matters most, with business goals in mind. It maintains momentum and provides clarity about who needs to do what, by when, and why.

The marketing plan should be a concrete document – something you’ve debated and discussed with key stakeholders, that they’ve signed up to, and than anchors marketing activity from that point on.

In practice, that probably means one or more of the following:

a paper written in something like Microsoft Word,

a formal project plan using Gantt charts, swimlanes or similar,

a spreadsheet.

Reviewing progress against the plan will ideally be a standing agenda item at team or board meetings, reminding everyone of the marketing goals and the contribution they have to make.

Defining your purpose and finding your niche

Before you can put together a plan you need to be really clear about what you want to achieve – what’s your strategy?

A clear statement of that should be (either figuratively or literally) the first page of your marketing plan.

If you’ve already defined a business plan, you can probably take a shortcut here.

A quick note: sometimes goals come first, then a defined proposition.

In our experience, it’s usually the other way round, however, which is reflected below.

First, research and reflect upon the state of the market, the competition and where there are opportunities for your accountancy practice to develop a unique proposition: what can you do better than any other accounting firm?

Typically, when the conversation turns to market niches, people start to think of industry sectors and that is one sound way to approach it.

Try to keep an open mind, though – it might be that your niche has more to do with, for example:

where potential clients are geographically

the stage of life they’re at

the size of their business

their sensitivity to price.

Next, think about what you want to achieve by defining specific, measurable business objectives or business goals.

At this point, people often shout ‘Profit!’ and, yes, that’s what most businesses are seeking to achieve. We’re talking here about the next level of detail down – profit how?

Here are some examples:

Sign up 10 new construction industry clients each month.

Increase the average revenue per client to £850 per month by the end of the year.

Achieve £1.5 million in fees in 2021/22.

Get 20% of existing clients signed up for business advisory services.

Once you’ve defined strategy, goals and a niche, you can start thinking about who you’re trying to reach.

The ideal customer: buyer personas

Buyer personas are a key part of your marketing strategy but you should also refer to them when putting together and implementing your practical marketing plan.

Software engineer Alan Cooper is generally credited with having invented the concept of what were then called ‘user personas’ in 1983.

His big idea was that focusing on the needs of a single imagined end user would produce better results than trying to turn out products that did all things for all people.

Today, buyer personas (or customer personas as they’re sometimes called) are often used to give marketing activity a clear target.

Our eBook contains a handy printable template we created to help you define your persona.

Defining a buyer journey for your personas is also helpful: as they go from awareness of your firm to making a final decision to purchase, what’s going through their mind?

Next, it’s down to the practicalities of putting a plan together.

When are you going to do it and what should it include?

When to work on your marketing plan

Timing your planning cycle correctly can help you to produce a marketing plan effectively and with minimum impact on the core of your role.

You might find that it’s best for the planning cycle to coincide with or follow financial year-end so you can reflect on your marketing and financial objectives at the same time and make sure they match up.

If you need to get sign-off from partners or other stakeholders in your practice, make sure you factor this into your planning cycle.

Make sure any deliverables are set out in a shared calendar or schedule.

With a solid, comprehensive plan in place by, say, the end of April, maintaining it will be much easier.